


Trophies

by fiery_flamingo



Series: Dark Arts Drabbles- Round Three [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: darkarts_ldws, Drabble, Gen, dark!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-18
Updated: 2012-04-18
Packaged: 2017-11-03 20:43:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiery_flamingo/pseuds/fiery_flamingo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the quiet moments, Filch pulls out his collection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trophies

During the quiet moments, Argus pulls out his collection.

He turns the lock on his office door to keep out unwelcome visitors that never come, checks the blinds that are never open, then wheels his chair to the grey file cabinet in the corner. It’s the only thing in the office without a speck of dust.

With measured breaths, he takes each item out, carefully. Reverently. He knows how to handle objects of power, unlike those brats that fling them about like they’re nothing, like they’re just toys. Argus knows.

First are the lesser objects: the Fanged Frisbees, the Screaming Yo-yos, the Ever-Bashing Boomerangs. Made for entertainment but still enchanted. Still something more than the mundane.

(More than him.)

Then come the greater objects: the cursed quills and the love potions. He shivers just to touch them, imagines what it was like to brew them, to put a bit of yourself into an inanimate object and make it spark.

(He’s chopped arrowroot east to west, plucked newt eyes fresh and stirred concoctions under the full moon but all that comes of it is a monstrous soup.)

Mrs. Norris arrives as he pulls out the last of his treasure. Locked doors are meaningless to her, as are the objects surrounding her human. She curls up beneath his chair, lamp-bright eyes lazily watching the ritual. It’s nothing she hasn’t seen before.

"Do you know the secret of it, Mrs. Norris?" he asks, turning his prize gently in his hands. "You would tell me if you did, wouldn’t you?"

As always, the cat is silent on the subject.

The item is modest in appearance. Just yellowed parchment to the untrained eye. Argus doesn’t even know what it does but he knows that there’s hidden power here, something beyond all his other trophies. If only he could puzzle it out, he knew he’d be so much closer to his goal.

He slides his fingers over the creases of the parchment, memorizing the ragged edges, the stains of misuse that it gained before he saved it like he saves them all from those ignorant, spoiled rodents.

(The only thing they’re good for is Mrs. Norris’ hunting.)

He sits, surrounded by his collection and holding his prize; surrounded by the power that everyone else takes for granted.

There are four-hundred and thirty seven items restricted on Hogwarts grounds. He wants at least one of all of them.

And then, one day, he’ll have enough. He’ll stroke and caress the magic out of every piece and it will become his own.

He’ll have magic.

(And then he’ll show them all what he can do.)

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Week Three of [darkarts_ldws](http://darkarts-ldws.livejournal.com)' Third Round of competition in 2011. Prompts were _Argus Filch_ and _confiscated items_.


End file.
